Lift Up Your Hearts!

Monk, the television show about obsessive-compulsive detective Adrian Monk, ran from 2002 - 2009.  We encountered it in 2007, thanks to Netflix and the suggestion of a friend, and completed the eighth and last season this month.  Part mystery, part comedy, and part fantasy, Monk ranks as the only television show for which we have seen every episode.

 

The Pros

I love recognizing our own quirks and foibles in the character of Monk.

Mystery has always been one of my favorite genres, and I'm not too fussy about realism and consistency, especially when the intent is also comic.

Although Monk is about crime, loss, and disability, it is not dark, but hopeful.

The characters are likeable.  In most movies and TV shows the characters are unlike anyone I know, and unlike anyone I would like to know.  I'd be happy to have the Monk characters in our neighborhood—except for the disturbing tendency of those around them to murder or be murdered.

The writing is of variable quality, but we found only a handful of episodes unsatisfactory.  Overall it's fair, imaginative, and well done.

Monk knew when to quit.  As they say, it's better to leave while people are still sad to see you go than after they've tired of you.  Unlike many shows—I remember specifically The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek (the original series) from my youth—Monk managed to draw the curtain before it became obvious that the writers had run out of ideas and the actors were sick of each other.

The series ended well, unlike the final episode of M.A.S.H., which still haunts me.

With respect to sex/violence/language issues, the show was purposely kept "at a 1970's level."  I find understatement and implication to be far more powerful than explicitness, and in any case there's far too much of the latter in real life.  If I wanted to hear the kind of talk prevalent on most current shows, I'd go back to volunteering in our local high school.

The Cons

The 1970's is not far enough back for sex/violence/language levels, as far as I'm concerned.  Sometimes it seems amazing to think that my own family lived and grew and managed to be quite articulate without ever using profanity in any form.  In most cases, I found the occasional, mild expostulations in Monk appropriate in context—the genre itself not being something the grandkids would watch, anyway—but I do find offensive the repeated use of "oh my god," with no more meaning than "like" or "um."

The show is formulaic; I'll admit it.  But I like the formula—and it's hard to avoid in the mystery genre if you're going to write more than one or two books, so it doesn't bother me. 

Is Monk important to watch?  No.  But for what it is, it is good.  And, come to think of it, if it's not important to watch shows like Monk, it's at least important to support them.  Dark, depressing, explicit, and frightening movies and television shows are forming the imaginative structure of the minds of a large number of people; a contemporary vision of hope and humor through difficulty may, indeed, be important for them to experience.

Rimsky-Korsakov:  Russian Easter Overture, op. 36
Respighi:  Church Windows
Debussy:  Sunken Cathedral
Sung:  The Circle Closes

This, the last of our subscription concerts for the season, promised to be a great one.  I love the Russian Easter Overture, and the Orlando Phil did a nice job with its glorious, solemn, joyful, and triumphant Resurrection Day music.  The next two works were new to me, but I like Respighi a lot, and Debussy well enough, and they did not disappoint.  This concert was a bit different, having extra lights that projecting a lotus blossom-like image of changing colors behind the orchestra during this, the first half of the performance.  It was hardly necessary, but was simple enough not to detract from the music, and may even have enhanced it a little.

The second half of the show was another story.  This is where I was truly disappointed, because for it my expectations had been highest.  I'd loved every Stella Sung composition I'd heard, beginning with the suite she wrote for the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra back in the 1990's.   As I said before, I've never yet met a Stella Sung work I didn't like.

Until now.  I hadn't anticipated having to struggle with my New Year's Resolution #4 - Like More Things.  The Circle Closes began well enough; I even managed to appreciate parts of the light show, though I found it a bit over the top.  There was enough dry ice to make one think the auditorium was on fire, and the musicians' feet—not to mention their instruments—must have been uncomfortably cold.  I will say I was impressed with the harp, however.  It was positioned in the light just right to make it look as if it had been carved out of tiger's eye, and the pins glowed with color that changed with the lights.

The music was, broadly, in two parts without a break.  Sung has stated that the work has no "program," but rather is purely abstract.  Nonetheless, I would have called the first part angry and aggressive, and the look of Carl the Timpanist rising up out of the cold fog gave the impression of some Nordic version of hell.  The second part was more serene and meditative, or so it seemed at first.

Porter described The Circle Closes as "one part Horizons [a ride at Disney World's EPCOT park], one part Blue Man Group, and one part  2001:  A Space Odyssey.  I, too, felt the EPCOT influence right away, and indeed the first half could make a good soundtrack to some wild theme park ride.  The movie that came to my mind, however, was Disney's Fantasia—the first one, in which A Night on Bald Mountain, with its angry devils and spouting flames, gives way to the Schubert Ave Maria and the monks' candlelit processional.  Only in this case it is as if the devils suddenly break into the procession and shatter the serenity forever.  I haven't quite yet forgiven Carl for what his tympani blast did to my heart in the middle of the meditation.

After that it was all downhill.  The second half of the work features four "crystal bowls."  This, too, I was looking forward to, because I've heard music using crystal goblets, and they make a lovely, ringing sound.  But this was something else.  According to the program, crystal bowls are sometimes used "for meditation and healing."  I agree with Porter that they could better be used for interrogation.  After two hours of that sound, he declared, he'd spill any state secret you want.  It took considerably less than two hours to have me cringing in my seat and eager for the concert to end.  The tone of the bowls was not, at first, unpleasant, but repeated endlessly, with no break, no discernable variation, just over and over and over and over, and at an increasingly loud volume, it was torture.  It took most of the ride home before my ears stopped ringing, and longer than that before my mind stopped ringing.

This was a first for me.  I've never not applauded at the end of a concert.  But I was that miserable.  I'm glad I showed my enthusiasm vigorously at the end of the first half, because I know the musicians did a good job.   And I'm not giving up on Stella Sung; no one can bat 1000 with anyone else's taste, and to be honest, most of the audience seemed to like The Circle Closes.  But not me, New Year's resolution notwithstanding.

But don't take my word for it.  The concert was streamed live online, and you can hear it yourself:  Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Color Cathedral.  You must register, but registration is free.  At the moment at least, it's not in a finished form—there are several versions, and the first one I watched ended in the middle of the piece.   And you may not get the same impression we did.  We were amazed to hear how much different it sounds in the recording.  The bowls are much softer and not nearly so oppressive, so it's possible that our negative experience was due to the acoustic peculiarities of our middle-front balcony position, though that's normally a very good spot.

Ever since our visit to Rio de Janiero, where we began each morning with suco de maracujá sem açúcar, out-of-this-world unsweetened passion fruit juice, I have been on the alert for passionfruit flavors.  Alas, nearly every version of passionfruit juice sold here is sweetened, which does a serious disservice to the noble fruit.

However, if you're going to adulterate the passionfruit, the Feodora Grand'Or Maracuja 75% Cacao chocolate bar is a good way to go.  Porter found this German delight for me in New York City.  At 75% cacao, the chocolate loses a little too much of its "mouthfeel" to be perfect, but the maracuja flavor is heavenly.  Don't pass this up if you get the opportunity to taste some.

Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan,  by Greg Mortenson (Viking Penguin, New York, 2009)

I knew before finishing Three Cups of Tea that I wanted to read the sequel.  Stones into Schools is even more wonderful.  For one thing, Mortenson has found better help with the writing, so the story is crafted in a riveting, compelling fashion.

Most of all, though, the story itself is riveting and compelling.  While autobiography was a necessary and interesting part of the first book, this one is more about the work of the Central Asia Institute than about Mortenson himself.  In an inversion of the usual approach taken in books about institutions, here the pyramid of emphasis gives the most prominence to the people at the bottom of the organizational structure.  Perhaps the greatest strength of the Central Asia Institute is the extent to which the principle of subsidiarity is honored:  the work is handled at the lowest competent level, which means most of it is in the hands of the Afghanis and Pakistanis themselves.  The Americans handle the overall organization and fundraising, at which it must be admitted we are much better than at dealing with the intricacies of getting things done in a culture that is completely foreign to us.

The Russian invasion of Afghanistan; the rise and fall and rise of the Taliban; the devastating earthquake in Kashmir; the tensions (and war) between India and Pakistan; the unselfish goodness and the tragic, pig-headed stupidity of American intervention—see these from the inside, and never look at a map of that part of the world in the same way again.  Learn what unbelievable sacrifices the "backwoods," tribal peoples will make to gain an education for their daughters, and how much they appreciate schooling for their sons that does not include militant, Taliban-backed, Saudi-funded, extremist indoctrination.

What pleases me most about Stones into Schools is the clear fairness of it all.  In the acknowledgments section, there are as many D's after the politicians names as there are R's.  Mortenson excoriates and praises American policy with an even hand, according to the results he sees.  And while he is careful never to take any funding from the U. S. government for fear of jeopardizing the credibility of his organization, he is happy to work with the military to promote peace and understanding.

Prior to those meetings [with military personal, from service academies to high-level officials], my judgment of the American military's conduct in Afghanistan was harsh and rather uncompromising—and even after these encounters, I still have my objections.  Between June and November 2006, for example, the U.S. Air Force ... dropped roughly 987 bombs on Afghanistan....  The resulting civilian casualties generated deep revulsion among the Afghan people.

Nevertheless, as I experienced the equivalent of sharing three cups of tea with the U.S. military, my perspective began to change.  In a way, each side had something to teach the other, and we both wound up emerging wiser and enriched by the encounter.  In the end, I also came away with the conclusion that the military is probably doing a better job than any other institution in the United States government—including the State Department, Congress, and the White House—of developing a meaningful understanding of the complex dynamics on the ground in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The progress that the military has made began under President Bush, and continues under President Obama.  The Central Asia Institute's supporters are as "red" as they are "blue."   They are school children collecting Pennies for Peace, and high-ranking military leaders.  Is there something here that can unite our sorely divided country?

I often recommend books, but I rarely say, "everyone should read this book."

Everyone should read this book.

Most of all, every American should read Stones into Schools.

The Gobblestone School: A Tale Inspired by the German Criminalization of Homeschooling, by Jacob Schriftman (aka Jokim Schnoebbe) (Moonrise/CreateSpace, Scotts Valley, California, 2009)

I wanted to like this book.

First, I wanted to read it, and for that I had to buy it, as it was not available in the library.  It languished in my Amazon "save for later" cart for a while, but I recently decided to indulge myself.  I'm glad I read it, but as indulgence goes, I'd rather have dark chocolate.

I don't remember where I first heard of The Gobblestone School; it was probably because of my deep concern (and daily prayers) for Germany, where homeschooling is sufficient grounds for forcibly removing children from their homes and placing them in governmental care.  Many homeschoolers have left their homes and jobs, families and friends to be able to give their children the education they believe is best, and the author of The Gobblestone School (now living in Ireland) is one of them.  So I really wanted to like his book.

But even extreme sympathy, identification, and concern won't make me say I like a book if I don't.

The Gobblestone School has three problems, as far as I am concerned.  First, it's aimed at modern adolescents, and I like very little that is focused on this narrow demographic.  I do give the author kudos for not filling his book with profanities and sexual themes, as many of that genre do.  It's also about school and magic, and let's be honest:  when it comes to modern adolescents, school, and magic, J. K. Rowling has set the bar rather high.

Second, I don't have to be able to write a better story to be qualified to say this one is not well written.  I can stand a poorly-written book if the story captivates me sufficiently, and I can stand a less interesting story if the craft is superlative.  But two strikes and I'm not happy.

Finally, I had hoped that the book would be a good introduction to the benefits of homeschooling and to the particular problems in Germany, an easily-read explanation I could lend to others. It turns out to be a book that the homeschooling cognoscenti and children who are miserable in school might appreciate, but I doubt it would contribute anything to a reasoned dialogue.  Even though the heavy-handed stereotyping is admittedly important to the plot, and the unhappy German school experience has clearly autobiographical elements (and therefore can't be entirely dismissed as false), the extreme negativity about school (and German school authorities) disqualifies the book from the outreach role I had hoped for it.  Not that the author doesn't have reason enough to feel strong negative emotions about the German school system!

My own hopes for it aside, The Gobblestone School was actually a fun, quick, and easy read, much better than most in its genre, though that's not exactly high praise.

Indoctrinate U (On the Fence Films, 2007)

Indoctrinate U has been on my "watch list" for a while, but I hadn't been able to make myself take the time. It's not available from Netflix, but I found it on YouTube, in nine parts of about 10 minutes each.  Today it came up on my "get this done today" list, so I thought I'd watch one or two of the segments. But they don't end in good places, and anyway I got hooked, so I watched the whole thing.

This documentary on discrimination, intolerance, and anti-diversity in American higher education is obviously not a high-budget film, though I'm sure it's better in the original format.  I agree with Janet's comment that "it only pointed out the problems and didn't discuss any causes or better yet, idea for fixing the problems," and fear she may be right that it might be more divisive than helpful.  Nonetheless, it's an important film to watch for anyone attending, planning to attend, or sending money to a college or university.  I am not advocating staying away from college; but do be aware of the larger picture.

Although the film looks with some nostalgia on university life in the 1960's, there was plenty of intolerance for diversity of thought even then, though it was not, as now, enshrined in the bureaucracy, and the hard sciences (where I was) were mostly free of that, at least as far as the students were concerned.  Our professors had a hard enough time teaching us math and physics, and didn't feel that taking time for political discussion would help us understand differential equations any better.  I'm told by math professor friends that that has now changed.  One, who has taught both in the United States and in Africa, expressed frustration that her American university required her to teach her not only calculus, but also the importance of African mathematics.  I'm not sure what "African mathematics" might be that is important for a university math major to learn (I missed it in my classes), but I wouldn't be surprised if in the future the important mathematicians are African—because her African students are eager to learn the content, not the politics, of math.

The investigator for Indoctrinate U has been criticized for his confrontational approach, but while I do think one cannot expect to see a university president without an appointment, as journalists go, he was about as mild and polite as you can get.

Yes, the film is one-sided, and not only because they couldn't get anyone from the university side to talk seriously with them.  It presents, however, a side that is not usually heard—indeed, is often censored, mocked, threatened, and attacked—and can be forgiven for being a little strident.

Here is the first segment; from there YouTube will provide links to the remaining eight.  Be patient with the first couple, as at least I found the emphasis on affirmative action less interesting than the general topic of free speech on campus, which is more clearly presented in later parts.  (There is a small number of profanities—quoting from a threat to a student and from the title of a play—that are bleeped out if you get the "clean" version, but the download versions are unaltered.)

I wish they had made more of a distinction between public and private colleges.  To me, there's a huge difference between what a private school chooses to allow or forbid, and what a taxpayer-funded school does.  But in either case, if the school is presenting itself as a bastion of diversity, tolerance, and academic freedom, evidence to the contrary needs to be heard.  Caveat emptor.

Is there a solution?  Confronting the universities with their own stated diversity policies is a start:  Janet had some success at her school that way.  In the long run, I think the biggest difference will be made by India and the Internet.  American universities have long enjoyed near-monopolistic dominance in their field.  However, as it did for their manufacturing and information technology counterparts, that privilege is coming to an end.  When people have choices, change happens.

Between Heaven and Hell:  A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley, by Peter Kreeft (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2008)

The Philosophy of Tolkien:  The Worldview Behind "The Lord of the Rings," by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2005)

 

Someone recommended to me Peter Kreeft's Jesus-Shock.  But our library doesn't have it, and before ordering it I decided it would be a good thing to sample his books that I could borrow—my previous experience with Peter Kreeft being pretty much limited to the banner we saw at MIT, advertising his upcoming visit.  Hence the unexpected addition of two new books to my reading list while there are still so many at home waiting to be read!  At least they are short books that didn't take long to read.

They probably should have taken much longer to read, as there's a lot of philosophy there, and philosophy is a subject of which I know very little.  One benefit of both books is reducing that ignorance a little bit, as did the only other book about philosophy I've read, Sophie's World.

Between Heaven and Hell is the shorter of the two, and reads very quickly.  It is set up as a Socratic dialog among John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley, who died within hours of each other and represent what Kreeft calls the three most influential philosophies of life:  modern Western humanism, ancient Western theism, and ancient Eastern pantheism. The dialog is somewhat rigged by Kreeft's obvious sympathies for Lewis, but that doesn't stop it from being a clear presentation of the various philosophical issues and differences.

Of the two, The Philosophy of Tolkien is my favorite.  For someone who loves Tolkien's works, and especially The Lord of the Rings, it is an interesting glimpse into the man behind the books, and his way of thinking.  Someone who doesn't already love the books, however, might find it a bit dry, though like Between Heaven and Hell it is also a good examination of some basic philosophical issues.  Kreeft tackles 50 questions, such as Does God Exist?  Are angels real?  Is nature really beautiful?  Is death good or bad? Is there real magic?  Is knowledge always good?, Is beauty always good?  Why is music so powerful?  Is small beautiful?  How powerful is evil?  and Does mercy trump justice?  His approach, as he explains in the introduction, generally uses four tools:

• an explanation of the meaning and importance of the question;
• a key quotation from The Lord of the Rings showing how Tolkien answered the question (many more passages are given in the Concordance to The Lord of the Rings in the Appendix);
• a quotation from Tolkien's other writings (usually a letter) that explains or comments on the theme in The Lord of the Rings;
• a quotation from C. S. Lewis, Tolkien's closest friend, showing the same philosophy directly stated.

The promising Concordance is less useful if you, like me, have a different version of the book(s) from Kreeft.  With the help of Everyman's Reference Book, the Internet, it can be handy for anyone.  That's the way I was able to find the source of one of the many quotations, my Motto of the Week, the wise counsel of Gandalf:

To cast aside regret and fear.  To do the deed at hand.

In Defense of Food:  An Eater's Manifesto, by Michael Pollan (Penguin, New York, 2008)

I'm in the middle (okay, the beginning) of two rather hefty books at the moment, Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World, and my latest review book from Thomas Nelson, The Chronological Guide to the Bible.  It's great to be reading the two of them together, though that means it will be a long time before I can review either one.

And now longer still, as the library e-mailed to let me know that I'd made it to the top of the waiting list for In Defense of Food.  Michael Pollan is shaping up to be the next John Taylor Gatto for me:  a modern author whose books I simply can't resist and can't put down.  Reading was the easy part; reviewing without quoting from every page is the difficulty. The book is bristling with my neon green and pink sticky notes.

C. S. Lewis, writing more than half a century ago about the unhealthy state of our sexual appetites, made this comparison with our approach to food:

The biological purpose of sex is children, just as the biological purpose of eating is to repair the body. Now if we eat whenever we feel inclined and just as much as we want, it is quite true most of us will eat too much: but not terrifically too much. One man may eat enough for two, but he does not eat enough for ten. The appetite goes a little beyond its biological purpose, but not enormously. But if a healthy young man indulged his sexual appetite whenever he felt inclined, and if each act produced a baby, then in ten years he might easily populate a small village. This appetite is in ludicrous and preposterous excess of its function.

Or take it another way. You can get a large audience together for a striptease act—that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food?

And indeed it has.  Americans are obsessed with food, simultaneously overweight and undernourished, eating more and enjoying it less.  Although the causes of our unhealthy relationship with food are many and complex, much is explained by the simple idea that we have abdicated our responsibility for what and how we eat in favor of the expert opinion of professionals.  Never mind that the experts change their minds dramatically with alarming and almost predictable frequency.  Reading In Defense of Food, I was struck by a feeling of  same song, next verse.  It's a strikingly familiar story to anyone who has considered the arenas of childbirth, medical care, education and even entertainment, in which we have ceded our rights and responsibilities to others.

The good news?  Our eating disorders are not our fault, but the cumulative effect of bad science, bad advice, and the biases of a whole lot of people in government, academia, and the food and medical industries who realize that there is much more profit in a Twinkie than a carrot.  The better news?  We can change.  We can take back the responsibility for our own food choices.

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.  Pollan begins with this succinct expression of how to eat right.  In the final section he fleshes out these thoughts with some practical suggestions, and in between he covers the dangers of nutritionism—regarding food as nothing more than a delivery system for nutrients—and why the Western diet appears largely responsible for what he calls the diseases of civilization.

I'm going to ignore most of my colorful sticky notes, but here are some favorites:

USDA figures show a decline in the nutrient content of the forty-three crops it has tracked since the 1950s.  In one recent analysis, vitamin C declined by 20 percent, iron by 15 percent, riboflavin by 38 percent, calcium by 16 percent....To put this in concrete terms, you now have to eat three apples to get the same amount of iron as you would have gotten from a single 1940 apple, and you'd have to eat several more slices of bread to get your recommended daily allowance of zinc than you would have a century ago.

Paul Rozin is a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has dreamed up some of the more imaginative survey questions ever asked of American eaters; the answers he's collected offer a pretty good index to our current befuddlement and anxiety about eating....  In one experiment, he showed the words "chocolate cake" to a group of Americans and recorded their word associations.  "Guilt" was the top response.  If that strikes you as unexceptional, consider the response of the French eaters to the same prompt:  "celebration."

A few years ago, Rozin presented a group of Americans with the following sentence:  "Assume you are alone on a desert island for one year and you can have water and one other food.  Pick the food that you think would be best for your health."  The choices were corn, alfalfa sprouts, hot dogs, spinach, peaches, bananas, and milk chocolate.  The most popular choice was bananas (42 percent), followed by spinach (27 percent), corn (12 percent), alfalfa sprouts (7 percent), peaches (5 percent), hot dogs (4 percent), and milk chocolate (3 percent).  Only 7 percent of the participants chose one of the two foods that would in fact best support survival:  hot dogs and milk chocolate.

Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma is a book well worth reading, but In Defense of Food is well worth buying, if only to be able to lend it out.  It's in my Amazon shopping cart even now.

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Hovel Audio, read by Simon Vance, abridged by Thomas R. Beyer)

I normally don't care for abridged versions of books, but this version was a free download from Christianaudio.com.  Since I've never read any of the great Russian novels, as an introduction, it's probably a good thing that this was abridged.  If and when I read the actual book, I'll have a better chance of keeping all the characters straight, and of not getting lost in all the diversions.  Having heard all the Russian names read aloud will no doubt be helpful, too.  This version is 19 1/4 hours long; you can download the full 40-hour version from LibriVox if you'd like.  There are also several online versions of the text, including one in the original Russian, if you're so inclined.

At first even the half-sized version seemed very long and tedious indeed.  By about halfway through, however, I began to look forward to hearing more of the story on my daily walks.  I don't know if it really got more interesting, or if I finally began to sort out the story.  You can tell it was written as a serial, and if he wasn't paid by the word, Dostoevsky sure writes that way.  For all the length, there's little plot and less action, though a great deal of character development and philosophical discussion.  I can't fault that, as this is a trait I treasure in the novels of George MacDonald; perhaps the Scottish character and viewpoint was easier for me to grasp than the Russian.  That the ending is less than satisfactory was explained when I learned that this was Dostoevsky's last novel, and that he had intended it to be only the beginning of a larger (!) story.

Through several hours of listening I was not glad to be hearing the book, only that when done I would at least have some familiarity with this great classic book.  But now I'm interested enough to think I might, someday, read it in its entirety.  Maybe.  Someday.  I have an awfully large backlog of unread books as it is....

Homeschooling for the Rest of Us:  How Your One-of-a-Kind Family Can Make Homeschooling and Real Life Work, by Sonya Haskins (Bethany House, Minneapolis, 2010)

Sonya Haskins is a calm and reasonable voice speaking to the homeschooler—and potential homeschooler—who is overwhelmed and intimidated by the image of the "perfect" homeschooling experience:  "Matching outfits, polite toddlers, award-winning students, fifteen-passenger vans, and family Web sites."   (Raymond and Dorothy Moore did the same thing in the 1980s with Homeschool Burnout, which was updated and revised in the 1990s as The Successful Homeschool Family Handbook.)  There's a lot of hype, confusion, and contradictory information out there, and Haskins' practical, back-to-basics approach and helpful suggestions will reassure timid beginners that they can, indeed, safely navigate the homeschooling waters.

It's a pity, then, that she "narrowcasts" her message to a small branch of Christian homeschoolers.  Most of her suggestions are excellent and appropriate for anyone, but the evangelistic message and the assumptions of a young-earth Creationism are bound to make the general audience uneasy about the rest of the book.  If its focus were broadened, this could become a classic introduction to homeschooling.  But perhaps the author (or publisher) is not looking for "classic":  the annoying sidebars and references to websites give it the feel of a magazine or "disposable book."  As I said, a pity, because there's much good here.

A book of under 200 pages cannot hope to be both broad and detailed; Haskins elects for broad—one reason why it's good introductory material—but still manages to provide helpful lists and examples.

Rather than propounding one method of homeschooling, Homeschooling for the Rest of Us generally presents suggestions appropriate for many approaches.  If she has an overarching philosophy, it is that character building is of primary importance.

Several years ago a mom came to me and asked how she should start homeschooling her children, then ages six and four.  I suggested three things:  reading to them frequently, training them to obey, and spending the first year or two focusing on relationships.  In my opinion, it is that third step that isn't emphasized enough in homeschool households.  We forget how important it is to teach our children how to get along, respect one another, and love others.  Parents have plenty of time to introduce academics, field trips, and outside activities, but if children don't learn how to develop positive relationships while they are young, it is difficult for them to attain this ability later.

I meet parents all the time who are so proud that their two-year-old can recite the alphabet, but when the parent tells the child not to do something, she does it anyway.  You can teach an obedient child new things, but it is very difficult to teach a disobedient child anything!

She is quite right, and I always say that the most important factor in determining the potential success of a homeschool situation is how well the parent and child get along.  Emphasizing academic excellence while allowing character to slide is setting a child up for ultimate failure.  Unfortunately, Haskins swings the pendulum too far the other way.  Her lackadaisical approach to academics is likely to be taken by those who are already too lax academically as an excuse to do even less.  Young children can learn obedience and the alphabet as well.

A basic belief among Christian homeschoolers is that the education of children is at heart a parental responsibility, not a governmental responsibility.  Homeschooling for the Rest of Us goes an important step further, making the critical point that, ultimately, education is the responsibility of the student.  (Unschoolers and secular writers such as John Holt and John Taylor Gatto would agree.)  

Before the mid-1800s, the burden of education was not on the government.  Nor was it on the parents....  Students knew that the burden of education was on their shoulders.  If they wanted to learn something, they borrowed books or found someone who could teach them what they wanted to know.  Education was considered a privilege.

When your child takes control of his or her education, this doesn't mean you throw discipline, structure, and guidance out the window.  It simply means that you allow your child to be the one responsible for his education....  You may choose to continue with a schedule....  You might even choose to have a structured curriculum.  But do not waste time every day arguing with a child about doing his schoolwork.

Here are a few more of my favorite quotes:

Over the years, I've discovered that the problem usually is not that [naysayers] disagree with the concept of homeschooling, but they think you disapprove of their choice to send their child to public or private school.  Each of you surely loves your child, and opinions differ on many parenting issues, including discipline, eating habits, and clothing choices.  But strangely, while friends can politely disagree on many things, it's often education choices that cause relationship problems.

[W]e parents should treat our children fairly, but there is a huge difference between fair and equal.

If you're still feeling pressure because experts or others tell you to "do it this way" or "if you'd only follow my plan, your life will be perfect, your children will obey, and they will love learning" or any other "just do it my way" kinds of statements, my advice is simple:  Find different experts!

Ralph Vaughan Williams:   Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Mozart:   Concerto No. 1 for Flute in G Major, K. 313 (285c)
Dvorak:  Symphony No. 7 in D minor, op. 70

The Orlando Phil's own Colleen Blagov proves once again my thesis that we don't necessarily need big-name performers at big-name prices.  Perhaps I'm not as picky/knowledgeable with flute as with strings, but I say she did a lovely job on the Mozart concerto.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Walt Disney Pictures, 2003, PG-13)

I realize I'm seven years behind most of the rest of the country in watching this movie, but at last I understand why our nephews love it so much.  Maybe it's another example of the value of low expectations, but I can't remember the last time I enjoyed a movie so much.  Just pure fun.  Probably not grandchild material yet, but I wouldn't rate it worse than PG myself.

Sure, it's as unrealistic as Indiana Jones, and they break the rules of physics, biology, history, and more, but it's easy to suspend disbelief because it's not pretending to be real, or true to a book I love.  It's plain fun, like the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean ride that inspired it.  Perhaps the ride is one reason I enjoyed the movie so.  Having had virtually unlimited access to the Disney parks when the kids were growing up, we became very familiar with this ride, and catching references to it in the movie is more fun than finding hidden Mickeys in the parks.  The music is great, too.

We missed having Janet around, though.  She would have told us in the beginning, "Hey, that guy played Legolas in The Lord of the Rings," whereas we only figured it out when the credits scrolled by.

I had to watch it, since my genealogical organizations, websites, and contacts kept bringing it to my attention:  NBC's new genealogy show, Who Do You Think You Are?  My reactions?  Mixed.

Each week, apparently, the show will present an investigation into the family history of one person.  Supposedly these are famous people; I haven't heard of any of them, but that helps me concentrate on the data, which I find more interesting anyway.

As I watched, I tried not to take the jaundiced position of expert amongst novices.  Not that I'm an expert in genealogy by any means, but I do know a whole lot more than I did when I began nearly eight years ago, and had to make a point of remembering those initial days of knowing nothing and being amazed by everything.  Not that making new discoveries ever gets routine.  But I would be very dull on a show like that, since I react to such revelations with "that's interesting," or maybe "that's really cool," but do not keep repeating, in an overly loud and dramatic voice, "Oh my God!" and "That's un-be-LEEV-able!"

The hyper-dramatic approach was not limited to the featured guest, but part and parcel of the show, and that did drive me nuts, even more so than the constant commercial breaks, which at least provided an opportunity to get the dishes done.  There is about 15 minutes of really excellent material in the show, and if they hadn't stretched it out to an hour, it would have been great.  It was fun to follow the research that led to the 49-er ancestor in California, and the accused witch in Massachusetts.  Enough fun that I may watch the next episode, but now that I know you can watch it on Hulu, I won't feel obligated to plan my life around 8 p.m. on Fridays.

On a personal note, the best part was seeing my Boston home-away-from-home, Li'l Writer Guy's sanctum sanctorum, the sixth floor reading room of the New England Historic Genealogical Society's library.

Recently I let my Ancestry.com membership lapse, on the grounds that they had doubled the cost.  It's a wonderful resource, but I couldn't let such an increase go unprotested, and was in a period of life when I couldn't use it effectively, anyway.  The membership had been costing me $150/year, which I had decided was worthwhile to keep the service available no matter how much or how little I used it.  I've not yet decided that it's worth $300, but have been hoping Ancestry will have a special membership sale sometime when I can rejoin.  The question now hangs in the air:  Will Who Do You Think You Are? encourage Ancestry to offer such a sale?  Or will it inspire a flood of new demand that will keep the price high?

Saint Patrick, by Jonathan Rogers (Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2010)

This new biography of the man whose feast day we celebrate this month is part of Thomas Nelson's Christian Encounters series.  I was pleasantly surprised by the intellectual seriousness of this book, which I had expected to take a light and popular approach.  It is certainly accessible, and short—just over 100 pages of text, plus appendices and notes—but packed with what little definitive information there is about this 5^th century saint.

Although legends about St. Patrick abound, all that we truly know of him is deduced from two documents, written by Patrick himself later in life.  Translations of both are included in the appendices.  Rogers weaves together passages from these texts with cultural and historical background information to create a picture of both the man and his times.

In a very few places I was brought up short by what seems to me to be anachronistic language.  For example, "Again, Patrick was unusual among Roman Catholics of his era in believing that 'all the world' meant there would be believers from the world beyond the Roman Empire."  Surely "Roman Christians" would have been a better choice when referring to a time period more than a millennium before the Reformation.

The reader who picks up St. Patrick hoping for an easy read, or a story that will keep the attention of an average pre-teen, will be disappointed.  But for someone looking for solid information on Ireland's patron saint and the world he lived in, this is a good place to begin.

Three Cups of Tea:  One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin Books, New York, 2007)

Greg Mortenson, the son of missionary parents, had a happy childhood in Africa, but his return to the United States as a teenager was rough, and it took him a long time to find his way.  As he tells it, it took a dramatic failure to lead him to his calling—but I disagree that someone has failed who has not succeeded in climbing the infamous K2 because he expended too much time and energy rescuing a climber in distress.  Whatever you call it, from that point in 1993 on, Mortenson's energies would be spent on a different form of rescue:  building schools and promoting education, especially for girls, in the remote, impoverished villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Mortenson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009; even President Obama's most enthusiastic supporters cannot read Three Cups of Tea without entertaining a doubt or two as to the wisdom of the Nobel Committee's final choice.  (The Nobel Committee overlooked Gandhi, too, so their peculiar judgement is not without precedent.)

The book is not especially well-written; I can't help thinking that David Oliver Relin's English teachers laid a little too much emphasis on metaphors and descriptive adjectives.  But the story is far too compelling to allow any sins of style to distract for long.

Mortenson's fumbling, single-handed efforts became the Central Asia Institute, which struggled slowly and painfully, through war, natural disaster, political disaster, war, kidnappings, death threats, war, treacherous terrain, treacherous criminals, and war to bring quality, secular education—and incidentally bridges, water works, hope, and a reason to love, not hate, Americans—to the desperately needy tribes of Northern Pakistan, and later Afghanistan.  It is a four-star (highest) rated charity, according to Charity Navigator, although its recent explosive growth (thanks in good measure, no doubt, to this book) may strain it a bit for a while.  But the groundwork appears as solid as the love and respect Mortenson has earned, from once-timid village girls, fearsome warlords, and the highest political, military, and religious authorities.

I am not a pacifist.  I reluctantly acknowledge that military intervention is sometimes necessary.  But I can't help thinking that if our government bothered to understand and appreciate other cultures and peoples the way Greg Mortenson has, we wouldn't keep getting ourselves interminably entangled in unwinnable wars.  They're listening to him now, so perhaps there is hope for a turnaround.

Mortenson has a new book:  Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Stay tuned:  there are only 14 people ahead of me on the library's waiting list.

Those in the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas might note that Mortenson will be speaking at public events in both places this April.